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When Should I Start Packing?

26th April 2017

By Probate Property Conveyancer Theresa Arkless

Selling your home can be a long process, so you don’t want to pack things you’re going to need before you have to. It can take time to get an offer on your home that’s acceptable, but once you do the Conveyancing process can begin. This is a good time to start thinking about what you want to take and what you want to get rid of.

After a sale is agreed, a Memorandum of Sale is sent out by the Estate Agent providing details of the buyers and sellers, their respective Conveyancers, the price agreed and any additional terms.

Once the seller’s Conveyancer receives the Memorandum of Sale they will get the information and forms needed to produce a contract pack. This contract pack is sent to the buyer’s Conveyancer. The contract pack includes the title information and additional information relating to the property. The buyer can then get a survey and proceed with a mortgage application.

The next stage is the property title investigation. The buyer’s Conveyancer checks the title and raises any questions they need to. At the same time searches are usually applied for and the survey results can be reviewed.

The next stage is a report on the title. Once all the queries are replied to, the searches are returned and any survey results are addressed, the Conveyancer will send the buyer a report on the title. The buyer will have a chance to raise any additional queries they may have once they have read the report. As a seller, or as someone in a chain, you may not be aware that this stage has been reached. Therefore it’s important to keep in contact with your Conveyancer and Estate Agent, who should be able to tell you what’s going on.

Once the buyer and mortgage lender have all the information required and everything needed is signed and in place, the Conveyancers will take instructions on exchanging contracts. The contract will include an agreed date for completion. When exchange is imminent you need to start making arrangements to remove your belongings, which means you need to start getting your packing materials ready.

Usually the completion date is shortly after exchange, for example you may exchange with completion in 2 weeks. This 2 weeks should give you enough time to arrange to pack your belongings.

Normally there aren’t any issues on the day of completion and everyone will remove their belongings and relocate to their new homes. But occasionally completion will fail to take place. There are lots of reasons this may happen and it’s a good idea to have a back-up plan in place. For example, you could get quotes for storage and check availability.

Sometimes you will find yourself in a position where you need to exchange and complete on the same day. If this is likely to happen, the best thing to do is speak to your Conveyancer and get an idea of how much is still to be done before a completion date can be agreed.